Last days of Bali...

We finally made it up early enough to catch low tide.  The reef stretches out

a hundred yards or more from the shore, and with the early morning calm,

 it was perfect for looking for fish.  We went back to the hotel and got the girls and our

swimming goggles--not as nice as snorkeling masks, but better than nothing!

 At low tide, someone came and set down a Hindu offering:  flower petals, some fruit and a stick of burning incense.

 Many Chinese tourists come here, so the grocery store had special apples--

"congratulations making money" which is the ultimate best wish for the Chinese.

We also saw many Russian tourists.

 We fixed our own breakfast in our room's little kitchen, but ate out for other meals.

I wasn't sorry about ordering the King Burger, but did it really need a fried egg?

The meat patty was different--not really sure what kind of meat it was,

but it was tasty.

 Indonesian money is the rupiyah.  These were 50,000 rupi notes, worth just under $5.00 each.

It was kind of handy that the exchange rate with the dollar was 11000 to 1.  

Just drop off 3 zeros and you have the approximate value.

Steve is holding over 1 million rupi (100 dollars). 

When we got money out of the ATM and it gave our bank balance (in rupiyah)

we were suddenly millionaires!  It was like playing with monopoly money.

 There were flowers everywhere.  Our hotel lobby, which was open-air, always smelled like lemon blossoms.  Stores had basins with flower petal art.

Plumeria blossoms littered the sidewalks.  I'd always pick one up just to smell the scent.

The tropics are wonderful!

 The hotel pool was large, with little islands, a volleyball net, a basketball hoop and 

lots of lounge chairs to relax on (or in Kevin's case, study Chinese).  

And it wasn't chlorinated water.  It was salt water. 

 Our last evening, we went to dinner with Jinny.  We met her at church and wanted to get to know her better. She is Indonesian, went to Hong Kong for education, met the missionaries, joined the church, served a mission, and is back on Bali working.  What a lovely young woman!

Then it was back to reality.  It IS still winter, not summer.  

(Funny how I had a hard time remembering what month of the year it was!)

We do have work and school and responsibilities!

It's good to be home.

It's good to have my hair under control again (with the humidity it was so curly 

and out of control no matter how much gel or spray I used).

It's good to have dry clothing.

I feel more fit after all the walking (and walking on that sandy beach was WORK!  

The sand looked like bird seed and each step would sink in several inches).  

And biking.  And lots and lots of swimming. 

Yes, it was a good vacation.  But I wouldn't want to live there.  

We talked with our driver--"have you done the river rafting?"  No, never.

Many of the people we talked to never went to the beach.

Normal life just doesn't include too much leisure.

And that's probably a good thing.

Biking in Bali

After the river-rafting, we spent one day on the beach, playing in the boisterous waves 

as the tide came in.  No pictures!  Just memories. 

(And sunburns despite slathering on 100-SPF sunscreen).

The next day, another adventure.  This time, biking for $40 each including pickup and drop-off at our hotel, breakfast and lunch.

First stop:  a coffee plantation

 which also grew cocoa beans.  (Now those are what I was interested in!)

 These are coffee beans.  Bali produces the most expensive coffee in the world, 

I think it is called Luwak or something.  

Not interested in tasting it, not only because I don't drink coffee as a Mormon,

but because this is cat-poo coffee.

The beans are eaten by wild civet cats (an example below),

then the poo is collected.  The bean husks have been digested off the beans and they are

fermented by the stomach juices, but remain whole.

They are collected by pooper-scoopers and then cleaned, roasted and brewed into a special flavor of coffee.  I just wonder who was the first person to try this?!

I'm sure the tour's hope is that we will purchase a lot of high-priced coffee.

I did get some ginger tea.

 We stuck to the hot chocolate and herbal teas they offered.

 Back up to the volcanic area for our breakfast overlooking the scene.

 A banana pancake, served with a honey syrup.  Fabulous!!!

 I finished mine off and didn't even give some to Kevin!  Our guide, Gede, is helping Steve

with his omelet.  Gede was great!  His was a story of how learning English helped him

rise out of poverty.  He has such a happy countenance!

 With the building clouds, the 2nd volcano looked like it was erupting.  The lake is part of  an ancient caldera that has collapsed.

After breakfast, on to our bikes!  They told us that we would be going downhill for 90% of the 27 kilometers we were going to ride.  They weren't kidding.

For the first half-hour, I think I only pedaled to start off.  

From then on, I was trying to figure out how to rest my hands as they began to cramp

from using the hand brakes so much!

Since we were up in elevation, it was cooler, and the breeze in our face so refreshing.

 We stopped at a Balinese home (a friend of Gede's) to see how they live.

I'm sure I was looking at a bird or the clouds--I really was listening to what Gede was saying!

 Dirt floors.  Wood cooking stove.  Thin pad on a wooden platform for a bed. No running water.

There was a single light bulb hanging on a wire in the center of the small room--a CFL bulb!

Very primitive living conditions.  This is the cabin for the 1st wife.

 As we traveled along, I noticed many yards with roosters in cages.  Yup, they are for cock-fighting.  It used to have religious significance in the Hindu tradition, but nowadays,

it is for gambling.  The fights are to the death, but as Gede noted,

then they have chicken for dinner.  The fights usually only last a few minutes

since the roosters have knives attached to their feet.

 This particular family had two wives.  Who lived in separate quarters about 15 feet from each other, and who never talked to one another.  

 We rode back roads through fields. 

  We rode through villages. And despite being downhill most of the way, there were a few uphills that were so steep we had to walk up.

 We stopped by a village Hindu temple and Gede explained more about the religion.

It is integrated into every aspect of their lives.  Each village has a temple.

Each home has a small temple--a corner with space for an offering.

Offerings are given multiple times a day (in a woven-palm small basket, with fruit, flowers and incense).  We could almost always smell incense during our time on Bali.

 The route was spectacular!  Watching people working in the rice fields,

or herding large numbers of ducks.  We really felt like we got to know what Bali was really like.

As we descended and the time moved toward afternoon, it got a lot warmer.

 By the time we finished, we were ready for the lunch (and it was 2 pm!).  The owner of the coffee plantation is the organizer of the bike ride, and lunch was at his home.

We especially appreciated the cool, wet washcloths to wipe our faces and hands.

It was a great meal--delicious!

Then they gave us the opportunity to play some of the instruments of the gamelan.

Even when we're the ones doing it, the sounds are still hard to listen to.

But the instruments themselves are so beautiful! 

(This one has xylophone-like keys that you hit with a mallet.)

Then off we went on the hour-drive back to our hotel.

What a great day!

And more things you can see in Bali...

Sunday afternoon, we just walked around the island, exploring.  It was windy!

And I was really there!  (I sometimes still want to pinch myself--did I REALLY do this?)

 After paying $30 each for a "10-minute boat ride out to an island in a glass bottom boat for excellent snorkeling", we found out the ride was 3 minutes.  

The island was a group of boats anchored in shallow water.

The glass-bottom boat is that small rectangle by our feet where we put our towels.

The snorkeling was in a circular area about the half the size of a gymnasium.

We were one of the first boats out, and other boats started to arrive, going right through

our snorkeling area!  We had to keep looking up to see if a boat was coming.

 The backward view after we got frustrated and left!

We asked for part of our money back, and instead got a better deal on the para-sailing,

which we hadn't really planned on doing, but turned out to be fun.

 Here the willing participants get their harnesses and gloves on.

 Alice getting instructions on guiding the parachute. Blue glove corresponds to a blue flag--pull on the right side.  Red glove, pull left.

 Getting ready to take off from the beach...

 Amidst hundreds of other water craft (boats, jet skies, etc).

This would so NOT be happening in the US, or any other country with liability laws!

 After the girls and the men went, they were so jazzed about it all they talked the moms into going.

And I DID it!  That's me landing, and I didn't even fall down.

It was quite an experience floating above and looking down at all the criss-crossing

boats, and seeing the beautiful turquoise water.

It was quite peaceful.  When coming back to the beach, in order to land on the sand (and not in the water), we had to pull hard on one side (with flags and bull-horn instructions from the

ground crew).  It all worked!

 Next day, next adventure!  White-water rafting down a river with Class 2 and 3 rapids. $35 per person, lunch included.

 First came the trek down the jungle path, and then down hundreds of stairs.

(the muscles around my knees could feel it for a couple of days afterwards).

 We didn't get to take any pictures during the trip--the camera was stowed away in a water-proof bag.  The trip started off with a glitch.  We heard a leak as we pushed away from the landing, but the guide said it was okay.  Mary and I were on the third seat and it went immediately flat, putting us down in the water on the bottom of the raft.  Ick!  So we stopped in at the next landing and the boat was pumped up again.  (There were several companies supplying the rafting experience).

 But as we went down through a couple of big rapids, and almost folded the boat over on one of them, the guide said the boat wasn't safe and we stopped at another landing.  He offered us some options.  Stop there, hike back up, get our money back.  #2 Hike back up, go to the beginning and start again with a new boat.  We opted for #3:  stay there and have a new boat brought to us.

 The rest of the journey (after an hour waiting) was great!  I couldn't believe we were going through a canyon like this:  jungle, rock carvings, real Indiana Jones stuff.

 And at the end, we had a nice Balinese lunch.  We had just arrived at the lunch hut when it began pouring rain.  I'm SO glad we weren't still on the river, or worse would have been climbing up the mossy concrete steps. They were already treacherous, and with the rain, ouch!

And at the end of the day, back by our hotel, reflexology foot massages.

Alice endured hers.  I enjoyed mine.  Kevin wouldn't do it at all.

There are two types of people in this world, those who like their feet touched and those who don't.

Things you might see on Bali...

Things you might see on Bali...

Volcanoes.  This one last erupted in 2006.  Ash, lava flow, death and destruction.

Alice letting her dad put his arm around her 

(believe me, this is unusual--she's touchy about her shoulders).

Pigs going to market in little wire cages.  How did they get them in there???

Roadside Hindu sculptures

Palm trees, mountains, and cute huts and wires.

Sidewalks that are even worse than what we deal with in China.

Street markets.

LDS hymnbooks in Bahasa, the main language of Indonesia.

The Davis and Bailey families at church at the Bali Branch.

The Bali branch meeting room, after meetings are over and chairs put away, and everyone just wants to talk to everyone and find out "why are you here in Bali?"

One family is French--here for the Green School.

The branch president is Taiwanese.

One family is Australian.

The rest are Balinese, and typically, joined the Church elsewhere.

And us, of course!

Additional note:  The mission president was visiting from Jakarta, Indonesia.  He currently has 96 missionaries but would like many more.  Apparently, there is some difficulty getting visas for missionaries, perhaps because of the dominance of Islam in Indonesia. 

So currently, there are no LDS missionaries serving on Bali. 

We also met several senior couples who are serving in Indonesia (proselyting as well as humanitarian missions).  Very interesting experiences!